Stuxnet 2? Iran Under Attack From New Computer Virus

Report: Iranian computers are again being targeted by a computer virus in what the country's commander of civil defense described Monday as a 'cyber war.'

Iranian computers are again being targeted by a computer virus in what the country's commander of civil defense described Monday as a "cyber war," according to Reuters.

"Fortunately, our young experts have been able to discover this virus and the Stars virus is now in the laboratory for more investigations," Gholamreza Jalali was quoted as saying. The civil defense commander did not detail the targets of the attack.

"The particular characteristics of the Stars virus have been discovered," Jalali said. "The virus is congruous and harmonious with the [computer] system and in the initial phase it does minor damage and might be mistaken for some executive files of government organizations."

Last year, Iranian nuclear facilities were apparently the main target of the Stuxnet computer worm—a Windows-specific computer threat that spies on and reprograms industrial control systems—which infected tens of thousands IP addresses in the country.

Jalali said that the mutating Stuxnet worm still put Iranian systems at risk, though Iranian officials have claimed to have neutralized the threat.

Stuxnet was first discovered at the Bushehr nuclear reactor last August when Iran began loading fuel into its first such facility. Iranian officials have claimed that Israel and U.S. were behind the Stuxnet worm.

A recent report from McAfee and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) warned that sophisticated computer threats like Stuxnet that target critical infrastructure would only increase in the future.

Damon Poeter got his start in journalism working for the English-language daily newspaper The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand. He covered everything from local news to sports and entertainment before settling on technology in the mid-2000s. Prior to joining PCMag, Damon worked at CRN and the Gilroy Dispatch. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle and Japan Times, among other newspapers and periodicals.
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